Even if your home isn’t a “view property”, things can be done to enhance the attractiveness of windows and their views. Recently I was showing a San Jose home for sale to my buyers.  I was struck by the window in one of the bedrooms.  Have a look – what do you think?  Would you want to look out at this wall every day? It is not a cheerful and welcoming environment.

There are places in San Francisco, and probably other cities around the country, where homes are crammed in so tightly together that windows function only for light and air – not aesthetics.  But in Silicon Valley, that’s not usually the case.  What was the builder of this home thinking, to have a bedroom window look out only onto a wall?

This next photo is of a window which is very close to a fence. But please notice how different the whole look and feel is.

Although a fence is close by, plantings on both sides of it provide some pleasant scenery.  Additionally, the window itself is given two treatments: both shades and curtains.  The color in the drapes helps to improve the scene too.

Admittedly, it’s a bigger challenge if the window’s view is of a wall which is 6 or 8 feet away and more so if it’s a 2nd story window. But what could be done to make this more attractive?

Here are some thoughts:

(1) If possible, plant something that will provide color – ideally a flowering vine or tree.  Some are not too wide and would provide a pleasant vista.

(2) Consider hanging a bird feeder, planter box or yard ornament outside of the window

(3) Stained glass window hangings could cheer up this gloomy space tremendously

(4) Instead of bland drapes, provide something with color

(5) Translucent blinds, in the closed position, would be more attractive but still let light in

Many homes don’t have challenges as big as this example, above, but could be better staged in terms of the window view.  If you want to put your home on the market and get top dollar, walk through your property and take in what a visitor sees from each window.  Ideally, you’d like to have the shades or blinds open and provide something pleasant to see.  Sometimes that’s not possible.  See what can be done to mitigate an unpleasant view while keeping the curtains open.

A few landscaping changes in your own yard (if you have a house or townhouse) can make a huge difference, often for a small cost.  Consider adding color.  Yards that are all green are not bad, but they don’t tend to warm hearts the way that a splash of color can.

Sometimes the 2 way blinds – the ones that can go down from the top or up from the bottom – can solve a lot of visual problems, such as ugly RVs, old cars, or messy yards on the lower part of the window or power lines or tall buildings on the higher end.

Still not sure what to do? Hire a great home stager to help you to make your home attractive, and make sure that you’re considering not just what’s inside of the home, but what visitors see when they look out through your windows and doors too.

Silicon Valley home buyers often state that they want to purchase a house, townhouse or condo which includes these attributes:

• inviting
• spacious, not cramped
• open (open floor plan)
• light, bright & airy – lots of natural sunlight inside
• has a good floor plan
• includes enough storage space
• well cared for (ideally, unless buying distressed)

In a nutshell, buyers want sunny, open, clean, uncluttered feeling spaces.

Rarely do they request cozy (implies small) or private (suggests flag lot or large hedges in the front, blocking view of the street), though most love a private back yard and some buyers really do want privacy in front as well as back (hence the great appeal to those who prefer an Eichler or other mid-century modern style house).  To get you the most money for your real estate sale, though, we don’t want to appeal to the few buyers who want one style; instead, to maximize your return we need to aim the staging at what the majority of buyers (or the most probable buyer for your property) will want.

How can you transform the home you live in to the house or condo you’re selling so that it appeals to these majority of buyers who want “sunny, open, and uncluttered” interiors and un-scary houses or homes?  Here are a few quick tips:

1. First, understand that you are moving from “your home” to a house or townhouse you’re selling – it is an item for sale and the main goal is to maximize what it will sell for. This is an attitude shift but is critical for getting you the best deal for your Silicon Valley property.
2. De-clutter: Anywhere from 1/4 to 1/2 of your belongings will probably need to go, whether to storage, to charity, to a garage sale, to a recycling plant or, all else failing, to the garbage.  A storage pod is a great help – they can take your stuff away and usually deliver it to your new place, if you are not moving too far away.  Most Americans have too much stuff in their homes. It’s fine to live that way but not so good to sell that way. (“The way you live in your home is not the way you sell it.”) Most of the “stuff” will come out of closets, hutches and cabinets but sometimes even walls need to be decluttered too. (Very smart to hire your Realtor BEFORE you do this so that you don’t get rid of the items you need the most and can get good advice on this action.)
3. Light, light and more light!  It’s so important to do everything you can to let the sunshine in from windows (pull curtains back, trim outside landscaping), have extra good interior lighting (add it if need be) and make sure that no room, hallway or area is dark.  Dark homes will truly cost you money!  Whether you need to increase the wattage of your light bulb or add a sun tunnel or two, look at every area of your house or home critically to see if it’s sunny and bright. If not, fix it!
4. Clean and scrub til it’s all shiny, including places where you never really look, like the sliding glass door or window tracks. Dirty homes cause buyers to worry about what is neglected, and worried buyers pay far less for homes.
5. Fix whatever doesn’t work well or is broken. Noisy fan – but it works? It’s usually inexpensive to replace it, so do! Loud fans and small things amiss tell buyers that you are deferring repairs, and they will wonder what else you’re not fixing that they’ll get stuck with, or worse, surprised with! That worry translates into lower offer prices.
6. Do pre-sale inspections. Confident, happy buyers write stronger, higher priced offers and back out of the deal far less often! Their happiness is contagious – you will sell for more and be happy too!
7. Offer and pay for a home warranty for the buyer. The buyers will feel better about paying top dollar when some fear is removed about expenses the first year after closing.
8. Don’t be there during showings. Buyers think it’s creepy if you’re there (sorry, but true) – they cannot talk freely and feel rushed to quit imposing and get out of your house. Plan to be gone!

If you hire a great Realtor to help you with pricing, marketing and negotiating your San Jose or Santa Clara County home for sale, you will have good help in making your property appeal to the largest pool of buyers and thus sell for more. Agents are not all alike, so hire carefully!

I’d love to be your first choice, so please call me, Mary Pope-Handy, for a no pressure, no obligation consultation on selling your home in Los Gatos, Saratoga, Campbell, San Jose are nearby: 408 204-7673 or email me at mary (at) popehandy (dot) com.

Keeping up with the latest trends in home decor and remodeling is a bit like painting the Golden Gate Bridge: by the time you’re done, you need to do it all over again.  Styles change, tastes change.  How often do you really want to remodel and update your hardware, light fixtures, floor coverings – to say nothing of kitchens and bathrooms?  If these items are functional and you like them, there’s no reason to change.  Then again, if you’re going to sell your home and want to maximize the return, it might be worth it to do some updating.

The average American kitchen is remodeled about every 17 years (sorry, I don’t recall where I read that) – that’s long enough to jump from one trend to the next, one set of materials or colors to the next.  If you wait long enough, certain themes actually come “full circle”, not unlike clothes!

To make a point:  in the mid 70s, brushed brass was in, and many if not most homes built then in the San Jose, Silicon Valley area were made with brushed brass doorknobs, hinges, drawer pulls, doorbells, you name it.  That trend moved to gold, brushed stainless steel and now – full circle – back to brass! Ditto that with colors.  “Earth tones” were all the rage in the 70s (olive green, deep brown, tan) and as things moved through the cycles (with a whole lot of white in between), the earth tones have come back again.

Some colors make more infrequent appearances, such as lemon yellow, lime green, bubble gum pink, baby blue….

Let’s just take a look at bathrooms and kitchens for this discussion about colors, materials and being in style.

If you’ve got a beautifully preserved 1920′s style bathroom with lovely tile, it’s practically an antique. (Apparently antiques are 100+ years old at a minimum.)  A few years ago I sold a Spanish style home in the Japantown area of San Jose with a drop dead gorgeous, original tile bathroom – you can see the photos and info online via the link.  This isn’t just old, it’s special!

Wood and tile were the best of the first half or so of the 1900s.  Early 1900s kitchens included wooden counters that boasted ridges and grading down toward the sink – a greatly practical idea to get the water or anything wet out of the way.  Some bathrooms with lesser quality had wall hung sinks rather than sinks with vanities, and they had a monochromatic tile scheme (just one color) with no fancy trim tiles.  The image of the bathroom sink and vanity, above, was very typically found in Santa Clara County homes in the 60s (or earlier) – very frequently there was a 2 or 3 color scheme and the trim tiles might have indents or ridges.  In the photo above, most tiles are green but there are pink accent tiles on both the counter top and floor, the sink is pink but the corner tiles are all black (similar to the older Spanish style bathroom I linked to above).

In the  70s earth tones reigned. Bathrooms and kitchens might have larger white tiles or tan tiles with black or dark brown grout.  Stall showers might be gold, tan, light brown – all with dark brown grout.  (Kitchen appliances were “harvest gold”, “avocado green” etc.)

In the 80s things began to lighten up.  The harvest colors receded and the golds and greens became a thing of the past.  Sinks, toilets, and appliances largely went to light colors (mostly white) or to a stark black.  Counter tops were more likely to be white tile with white grout or a light colored, swirly plastic or cultured marble surface.

By the 90s, tile was no longer the preferred material: slab granite, granite tile and Corian or other solid-surface materials were the best.  Slowly, white was getting some accent colors again but the “light and bright” tone remained the mainstay. Black appliances were in (and they were blacker than ever).

A decade later, at the turn of the century,  it was maple cabinets, slab granite (or other natural stone, or even concrete) and black appliances were giving way to brushed stainless.  Bathrooms enjoyed more recessed lighting, and where fluorescent lights were required, they were showing up in strange places, such as under the cabinet (by your feet) – to keep the incandescent lights above. Some Italian style, metal cabinets and counters also became increasingly popular too.  Light colored bamboo wood flooring (soft wood, not a hard wood), were highly prized.

Today, engineered stone counter tops, which are easier to maintain and come in a wide variety of colors, are perhaps the most popular choice for bathroom and kitchen counters. Dark cherry cabinets and dark, Brazilian wood floors are popular.

All of this to say:  whatever you do today, expect it to be outdated tomorrow (within 10 years).  Unless you are doing improvements to sell, I suggest making changes that you will like.  After all, first and foremost, your house or condo or townhouse is your home.  It’s not a showpiece, a gallery, a piece of jewelry.  The popular ideas will change over the next 10 years. You can also choose colors and materials which are traditional and have enduring value with a wide appeal.  If these are within the realm of what you personally like, it may be the best bet of all.

 For more reading:

Home sellers: beware over improving your property when preparing to sell

Selling Your Silicon Valley Home: Staging & Color

Want to Sell Your Home? Make it Easy for Buyers to See It!

How important is the marketing of homes for sale in Silicon Valley?  First it’s important to understand what we mean by the term marketing: generally, it is the way we attract potential buyers to the homes for sale.  This is more than just the flyer or newspaper ads.  It includes:

• pricing the home
• photographing the property
• describing the home on the MLS (and including good pictures)
• the quality of the flyers
• the print advertising
• the online advertising & exposure
• the networking with other agents
• the direct outreach and appeal to consumers
• the accessibility of the home
• staging the home to sell (appeal, cleanliness, no odors, etc.)

Marketing can be good, bad, or somewhere in between. Bad marketing will likely cost sellers money and good marketing will likely make them money.  

Today we’ll go over the most important elements of marketing because sellers should evaluate them when hiring a Realtor to assist them in the marketing and sale of their home.  While there are many areas of marketing, the most crucial, by far, are these three: pricing, photos, and the description on the MLS.

Pricing:  The biggest marketing mistake which is commonly seen is overpricing.  Sellers sometimes believe that their home is worth more than the buying public do and a home will remain unsold no matter what else is done right.  In fact, you could fly airplanes aroud the home and put full page color ads in every paper around the world but if the home is overpriced, it still won’t sell!  Pricing is the most important part of marketing.   With a too-high price, traffic will be diminished and offers will be low at best (lower than actual market value).

Of course, most homes are worth not just one exact dollar amount but somewhere within a range of prices, depending on terms, the speed of the sale etc.  If the pricing is well done and the rest of the marketing is also quite good, the home ought to sell on the high end of what is possible at that time.

Pricing mistakes are very costly and very easy to make.  Here are some of the ways which sellers can be misled about the probable market value of their home:

• using old comps
• relying upon online home valuations
• basing their home’s sale price on what they “need”
• hiring an agent based on his/her suggesting the highest list price (we call that “buying the listing” when an agent overstates value to secure the listing)
• expecting 100% back from all improvements done to the home
• believing buyers can “always make an offer” (if it’s overpriced, they usually won’t)
• thinking there’s no harm in just reducing the price later (if the market is going down, you will be “chasing the market down”)

The one thing that neither the sellers nor their Realtors control is the real estate market, which is fickle and can change.  In recent years it’s been up and down, depending upon location, price point, school districts and more.  Using six month old comparable sales to establish current market value just isn’t appropriate.  Sometimes even the most recently closed sale is not enough, especially if the market is sliding.  Instead of just relying on the solds, also look at the pendings and the current competition.  The less competition your home has, the better odds you have of selling it – and for more.  But a surge of inventory will cause home values (including yours) to drop.   To understand the probable buyer’s value, all of these must be factored in together.  (The online valuation sites do not do that.)

I should add that it is harder to sell a property that has issues such as high voltage power lines, deferred maintenance, messy tenants who make showings difficult, busy road, junky neighbors, or some other undesirable element.  Many agents will suggest a lower price to compensate for whatever issue is hurting the marketability of the home.

While it’s true that there is no problem that a better price cannot fix, most sellers are trying to maximize their sales price.  For that reason, I’d always suggest asking your real estate agent if there’s anything that can be done to improve the market value aside from that lower price.  Sometimes fresh paint and carpet and a professional house cleaning can do wonders for the home’s saleability.  Or giving tenants a lower rent in exchange for their cooperation during the sale will create an easier time for buyers wanting to see and purchase your home.   A little effort may have a great payoff.  (Some agents focus almost exclusively on price and may not be worried about any other element of marketing.  This is a mistake, so be aware that you may run into an agent with this belief.)

Photographs:  Beyond pricing, the next biggest area where we commonly see bad marketing is in poor photography of the home.  Buyers care a tremendous amount about the photos of the home, both outside and inside, and will not bother to see properties where the pics are absent or skip main rooms (such as kitchens and bathrooms, which are expensive to remodel). The presumption is that if it’s not photographed, it’s because it’s horrible.

Good photography will show the home in its best realistic light.  It will not have over-saturation (somewhat surreal looking, which seems to be in style now). 

A good main photo will show front of the home and include the front door and windows (without focusing on the garage).  Bad photography will not only zero in on the garage and driveway, but will likely include a car parked there (too much trouble to ask them to move it!) or maybe garbage bins, toys, hoses or other distractions laying about. This main photograph will show up everywhere from the MLS to the house flyer to a myriad of online websites; I cannot stress enough how important it is that it be nicely done!

The photo below is of a home in Saratoga that my parents owned for about 20 years, and which I sold for my dad after my mother’s passing.  This house is on a flag lot -  it’s behind another home and to get to it, you have to go down a long driveway.  At the end of the driveway, naturally, is a garage.  When photos are taken from there, what is prominent is a 3 car garage and a whole lot of concrete.  That’s the easiest place from which to take photographs, but not the best!

Photograph of home with front door as main focus

The interior and backyard shots also need to be good, of course.  Pictures should not be taken until the home is clean, staged and “show ready”.  For some home owners, it’s not difficult to get their home in shape for the public to view it online and in person. For others, it’s an immense effort.  If you fall into the latter category, get help!  It is cheaper to hire a stager to assist with decluttering and staging then it is to lose the buyer.

Remember, any main area of the condo, townhouse or house which is not photographed will be presumed to be bad by the buying public.  Make sure that the bathrooms and kitchen, especially, gleam and are well photographed!

The MLS:  The multiple listing service (MLS) is the # 1 way we reach buyers in the San Jose – Los Gatos – Saratoga – Silicon Valley area.  The description and photos there are key to getting qualified traffic into the home.  In addition to good still pics, it’s helpful to have a high-quality virtual tour.  Today many of the virtual tours are really just slideshows of still photos.  The better ones, though, include pan shots or actual videos.  (When I do virtual tours they include many photos which I stitch together to create pans of rooms and yards. In the last year or two I’ve been doing 40 – 60 photos per tour.)

The description on the MLS is also key. There are a limited number of characters for comments.  Using precise, descriptive words can be very powerful, while using vague descriptives can be very unconvincing.  Here are some examples:

Weak:
Nice floors
Gorgeous kitchen
Beautiful
Newer appliances
Well maintained
Updated kitchen
Newer roof
Newer windows
air conditioning
(also weak: no permits or finals or “permits unknown”)

Strong:
Hardwood floors, just refinished
Slab Granite countertops, stainless steel appliances
Wolf range, Bosch dishwasher, (brand names)
Kitchen remodeled 3 years ago
Presidential roof, 1 year old
Trane heater & A/C, 3 years old
(Brand name – Andersen, Pella etc) windows installed 2 years ago
If work done with permits and finals, say so!
If work done by well known builder or kitchen remodeler, say so!

Obviously, only offer the age of the components of the home if they’re newer!

Flyers and Print ads: Usually if there’s a problem with the flyers or ads, there’s a bigger, underlying problem with the photos or MLS and the bad flyers and ads are something of a trickle-down problem.  But let’s touch on the print media too since it’s a hot button for many, including me (I cringe when I see awful flyers).  

Recently I saw a one-sided house flyer of a million dollar home that has one terrible “main” photo which showcases the garage door & driveway and the street in front of it (with the manhole cover being prominent) and a bunch of very tiny thumbnail pics on the side which are too small to even figure out.  Takeaway: the garage is the big deal here. Forget the house. Oh and to top it off, there’s a car in the driveway! (Sorry folks, it’s not included in the sale.)

The description on this marketing piece was awful too.  The main title was a non-descriptive line: “Gorgeous Home”. That could mean almost anything, it’s so vague!  And the address line included the state – very silly since we are hundreds of miles from anything out of California.

To top it off, the price was missing on this info sheet, and so was the MLS number.  Why?  Usually agents do that so they can get the “up calls” and try to convert leads to buyers.  (So too was the agent’s license number missing, which is now required by the California Department of Real Estate.) 

It’s frustrating to see really terrible marketing, because I know that the seller is going to be hurt by it, but once a home is listed, other agents cannot interfere.  I wish that managing brokers paid more attention to the marketing that their agents did – it would help both the consumers and the real estate businesses to do a better job.

So what should you expect in a home flyer if your home is listed for sale by a Realtor?  Ask before you hire so you are not surprised!  Some agents (small minority) will do no flyer or just print out info directly from the MLS.  Some will do a lousy one sided piece.   Most agents will do a nice 2 sided, color flyer with photos on both sides for most homes, including condos.  For very high end or luxury homes, there may be a large handout with four sides and many photos and text.   (Some agents will produce a 4 sided flyer but reserve the last page to advertise themselves rather than their listing.)

But do flyers really matter at all? 

I believe that they do matter.  Buyers, their family and friends use flyers on the for sale sign’s post box to screen homes to see.  Great flyer? Go see the home!   Lousy flyer? Forget it.  (Buyers also use the flyer as a memory jog after seeing homes so they can keep them all straight.)  It’s not a huge percentage of impact, perhaps somewhere between 3% and 10%, but would you want to eliminate any significant chances of your home selling for top dollar? 

Print advertisements, on the other hand, are not effective for selling homes anymore.  They are effective for marketing the listing agent, though!  Buyers and their agents are not looking at the local newspaper or homes magazine but instead are browsing homes online. 

The magazines are beautiful but have a deadline several weeks prior to production, so by the time they are on the shelves at the local grocery store, the homes advertised may be long gone.  Newspapers are more current but still not 100% up to date for the same reason. 

But visit www.MLSListings.com (the public and the data you pull is current to within 15 minutes.  Can’t beat that.

So forget the print ads.  They make the sellers feel good to see their home in print but they are not effective at marketing the property, just the listing agent. 

To get the most bang for your buck with real estate marketing, focus first on correct pricing, fabulous photographs and ideal MLS description & comments.  These are the foundation for excellent realty marketing of homes for sale in Santa Clara County and throughout the state.  Also pay attention to staging (in conjunction with photos) and the home flyers.  Keeping the home accessible and pleasant not just on the day the photographs are shot but throughout the listing period is important too, of course. 

It’s a great bonus if your agent is a good networker, since often homes “sell twice”, first to the real estate community and second to the buyers themselves.  In some cases, this is extremely important, but most of the time the networking element is icing on the cake.  As long as the fundamentals are right, this last bit of marketing may not matter too tremendously in the majority of cases, but if your agent does it, consider that a plus.

Today I showed a newer home in San Jose’s Cambrian Park area to some great first time home buyer clients of mine.  The house has a nice location and fine floor plan.  Some elements of the home were really appealing. But unfortunately, the sellers hadn’t made their home “show ready“.  They cut corners.

As we walked through the property, my clients and I noted places where there was neglect.  The items were generally not big, but unfortunately there were many of them.  Had the owners brought in a painter to do minor cosmetic changes (patch and paint), the home could have looked “like new”.  Instead, it was as if the home were full of red flags. Talk about making a bad impression!

My buyers asked me what I thought, if what we saw would scare me off.  No, I told them, they all seemed relatively minor to me,  but I did understand their concern.  One of them explained that “if we see things like this, we believe that the sellers have not taken good care of their home; what else is wrong that we cannot yet see?”

Confident buyers write offers and tend to write good offers.  Nervous buyers who are concerned that there are hidden defects (and therefore hidden costs) either don’t write contracts at all or they write lower offers.

Realtors who list homes with these minor defects or deferred maintenance sometimes have an uphill battle conveying to the home owners why it is so very important to fix up the home and make it look good.  Sellers tend to think “I’ve lived with it, it’s fine” or “everything works, what’s the problem?”  Buyers are cautious and afraid, though.  If they are afraid about your home’s hidden defects,they’ll either pass or write a low offer.

In the case of my showing today, even though the buyers asked me if I’d have been scared off (and I wouldn’t), they were.  One of them said to me, “we had had such hopes for this home!”  They were very disappointed, but didn’t trust the house to be “solid”.

New paint, new carpet, needed repairs and staging can go a long way in making nervous buyers become confident buyers.  Sellers, don’t skimp in the preparation or the repairs!  Think of it like getting ready for a first date: you want to make the right impression!  If your agent tells you to do certain things to make the home sell for top dollar, pay attention.  After all, that’s why you hired your agent to guide you in the first place!

Mary Pope-Handy is an award-winning, top Silicon Valley Realtor and blogger.  She is the co-author of a book, “Get The Best Deal When Selling Your Home in Silicon Valley”.  The book is available on Amazon.com, in select local bookstores, or through Mary, who will provide it as a gift when you meet with her to discuss selling your home (no obligation).

Twelve Silicon Valley Doors, shown as black & white sketch(photo by Mary Pope-Handy)

Thinking of selling your Silicon Valley home?  When your house or condo is for sale, curb appeal is crucial because if buyers don’t like what they see on the outside, they will not bother to see what’s on the inside!

It’s hackneyed but true:  “You never get a second chance to make a first impression“.

This is no where more true than with front doors! Staging begins on the front porch.

In my real estate practice, I usually see at least 10 or 15 San Jose, Los Gatos or Saratoga area homes per week – usually many more than that too.  A good, clean front door with nice paint or varnish, no dust, clear glass and sparkling hardware gives a good welcome to your home’s visitors, whether they are coming as prospective buyers or simply as guests.  Amazingly, though, not every home seller gets this basic principle quite right. Very often, front doors are dusty, dirty, in need of paint or perhaps even in need of replacement.

And we’re just scratching the surface!

A home's front door sends a message. What message does yours give off? Photos by Mary Pope-Handy

Here (to the right) are some doors I’ve encountered recently in my work as a Silicon Valley Realtor.  What do you think of each of these?

The first one has a “security screen door” in front of the regular front door, which is mostly obscured.  What message does this kind of strong grill give?  If it’s the only one on the street, it might imply that one person nearby has concerns about safety. But if there are several doors like this on the same street or nearby, it screams, “Danger, high crime district!”

The next front door is perhaps a typical or average San Jose or Santa Clara County door.  It has a painted exterior and a fan light window on top, which allows some light into the home.  It’s a little more inviting than something solid or without side panel windows.  This type of door is not super expensive, but it does come across as at least fine, if not “good”.

Next is a door which we agents were required to use to enter a home in west San Jose.  It’s not the front door, but the key to enter the house required us to use this dirty, scratched up door (which actually faced the back yard).  I shared this image, but a larger version, on Facebook and Twitter and my agent & client friends were all appalled.  Several asked if it was a short sale or bank owned property.  To everyone’s amazement, no, it’s a “regular sale”!  This kind of introduction to the property, though, is anything but regular!  It is a discredit to the agent and the seller to put a home on the market with such a terrible first exposure to a property.  It was completely unnecessary as the regular front door was infinitely less offensive than this.

Assuming that the door of your home is functional, you should not need to replace it in order to market your home for sale.  In most cases, the door should be cleaned (power washing the exterior of the home is usually a good idea for most sellers), and in some cases it should be painted too.

If you do need to paint your home and/or door, please know that some colors ARE better than others.  A natural wood, black or deep red are all good feng shui colors.  Many buyers also respond well to dark brown and white front doors.  Far less accepted are colors such as light blue, pink, purple, orange, and green.  (Yes, one of the doors in the above collage IS orange.)

Need to replace your front door?  Before doing it, take into account the architectural style of your home, its orientation and need for light or need for privacy. For the sake of resale value, you don’t want the cheapest, ugliest door, but you don’t need to buy the most expensive either (because you won’t see a return on your investment).

Also, don’t forget the hardware!  Things like grimey hinges or a missing threshold can register with a buyer that “something’s not quite right”.  Make it shine & make it complete.

Finally, finish off your front door preparation with a nice mat and pleasant annuals near the front door for a splash of welcoming color.

Now you’re ready to roll – at least on the front porch.  But remember that front doors, like the rest of your home, won’t stay clean by themselves.  Be diligent about looking after it while your home’s for sale.  Hose it down, or, better yet, take a feather duster to it every few days to make sure it maintains that welcoming, turnkey look.

You keep reading that it’s a “seller’s market” in Silicon Valley real estate.  You hear about multiple offers and home prices getting pushed up.  There are tax credits which cause buyers to fight to buy homes.

Should you jump in as a San Jose area seller now? 

Maybe, but if you do it, do it right!  The dirty little secret that no one talks about is that most Santa Clara County homes for sale are not selling.  They sit on the market, popping up on MLS searches for month after month.

There are quite a few common myths that home owners believe about selling their property. Believe these, and act accordingly, and your chances of selling are dramatically damaged:

• my price is high, but buyers can always “make an offer”
• it’s a seller’s market, my home does not have to be perfect
• if I fix up the home to sell, the buyer may not like the changes
• it was like this when I bought it, so I don’t have to improve it now
• I have lived with (fill in the blank) forever, there’s nothing wrong with it

Getting the staging and pricing right matter tremendously.  Today let’s just focus on staging.

Buyers often spend everything they have to get into a new home, and usually they can’t afford to improve it once they move it.  So the first thing to understand, if you are selling your home in Los Gatos, Saratoga or San Jose, is that your home needs to look “turnkey”.  This is what 90% of the buyers need.  If your home isn’t move-in ready, you will automatically eliminate most of your home buying audience!

Let’s look at some photos to drive the point home.  I won’t say where these were taken, only that it’s a Santa Clara County home for sale right now.

When buyers and their Realtors first arrive at your home, they get a first impression of what kind of shape your house is in.  What does the landscaping say? What does the driveway say?

This driveway has a lot of cracks.  Buyers view it as money they’ll have to spend to make it look right.  Real estate agents know that this is a “red flag” that the foundation may also be damaged and cracked.   Either first experience of your home is not positive.  If they’re doing a drive by, they may or may not come back to see what’s inside.  Usually a cracked driveway alone won’t kill showings, but if the rest of the front of the home is bad, that may be enough to stop traffic.  If they don’t see your home, they won’t buy your home – so getting good, qualified traffic is top priority.

The next impression isn’t better.  Here are the windows which also face the street on the same home. Are they dirty?  Has the seal on the dual pane windows failed?  No matter what – it’s a horrible “first impression”. 

Sure enough, when I went inside, it was consistent: the inside what just as bad as the outside.  The kitchen was “beat up” looking.  It had been cheaply remodeled and was treated badly by its owners.  Whoever buys this house probably will have to gut and replace the current kitchen. Below is a large, closeup of a kitchen drawer that exemplifies what’s seen in the home. 

What to do?  A seller could have refaced the cabinets (and replaced the countertop with an attractive formica or Corian countertop) to clean it up.  Few buyers worry about the inside of the cabinets – it’s the outside that they care about.

The back yard is the least important of all the areas to worry about, since buyers are braver about tackling a part of the property that isn’t visible to the world and that they can avoid going through for awhile if needed.  Even so, it’s best to at least cut down the tall weeds!

Most homes are not this bad, of course, and it doesn’t take nearly so much effort or money to really get a home in shape to sell.

Are there any general “rules of thumb” for preparing your home to sell? Yes! The vast majority of times, these items are needed to be done to maximize your home selling price:

1. Decutter – often we live with too much stuff in our homes, in our garages, in our bookshelves, closets and cabinets.  How much? Usually, to sell, about 1/3 of everything must go!  (Donate it, sell it, store it, but get it out of the home!)
2. Repair – if your door sticks, your bathroom fan’s too noisy, your faucet drips, get them fixed.  Small annoyances add up to a bad impression.
3. Clean – this is no time for dirt, rust, streaks or mildew!
4. Make it light – trim back bushes that grow in front of windows, pull back curtains (or perhaps eliminate them), add lights to dark rooms. Whatever the need is, make sure it’s handled so your home is light. Dark homes are a turnoff to buyers.  They often cannot imagine what it will take to lighten up the house.
5. Focus on an inviting front of the home, add color, make the pathways clear of hoses, debris, etc.   Declutter.  Add colorful annuals near the front door.  Make sure your front door is impeccably clean (it may need refinishing, repainting or replacing). 

I co-authored a book, “Get The Best Deal When Selling Your Home in Silicon Valley“, and would be happy to give you a copy of it when we meet to discuss selling your home (no obligation).  Or you can find it online or in local bookstores.  The book contains many more ways to get top dollar when you sell your Silicon Valley house or condo.  Please email or call me today to discuss selling your home in Los Gatos, San Jose, or Saratoga.

Sometimes when I meet prospective clients who are thinking of selling their home, I hear immediately, “we only want to sell As Is“.  In the next breath, they tell me, “and we want top dollar for our house”.  Those two are often mutually exclusive desires – that is, getting one usually means you won’t get the other.  But not always, and I’ll show you how to increase the odds of doing both.

To get top dollar, a Silicon Valley home for sale must appear to be the best value for the money and attract the most qualified buyers who step forward with a strong offer.  Buyers will pay more IF they feel that your home is a better value.

There are a number of things which need to be done for that to occur, but one of the most important has to do with the condition and appearance of the property. Confident buyers write stronger offers than buyers who are concerned about the house or condominium and potentially unknown risks. (Buyers are thinking “risk, risk, risk” and “beware of hidden costs”!) Home buying is both a business decision as well as an emotional decision.  To get top dollar, your home has to make sense and appeal to buyers on both levels, and we’ll discuss both in this post.

On a business level,  buyers want to feel that there will not be surprise costs (“hidden risk” or “hidden costs”) which will only be discovered later, either after they’re in escrow and have paid for an appraisal and inspections, or worse, after they’ve moved in.   It is not so hard to alleviate this buyer fear: simply provide pre-sale inspections so that the potential home buyer understands the true condition of the home.

If your home’s new owner can review the inspections, and even your disclosures, prior to writing an offer you’ll get a stronger contract to start with and will be far less likely to receive further negotiation attempts in escrow (which are usually the result of a surprise when a buyer has inspections).  Remember, once you’re in contract to sell the home, any negotiation from that point on will be in the buyer’s favor – the sales price never goes up in the middle of escrow!  So prevent surprises, remove the risk, and you’ll both get a stronger offer to begin with and likely prevent renegotiation later.

Inspections can cost up to a thousand dollars in most situations (condos will be less than large luxury homes of course) but having pre-sale inspections probably boosts the sales price a percent or two at least, so it’s money well spent, in my experience.  What inspections should you get? I’ve written about it elsewhere, but in most cases you’ll want a pest report at a minimum and probably a home inspection too.  In some cases you’ll want a chimney, roof,  pool, or other component inspected as well.

Once you’ve had the inspections done, you may be surprised to learn that there are some issues with the property. This is normal in homes that are not new, of course, but buyers have a few major areas that they worry about more than others: foundation, roof, electrical, plumming, termites and other pests.   The list of potential issues is long, but many are minor and they won’t be a big selling hurdle.  Depending on what comes out of the inspection reports, you may selectively fix items you choose (and, I would suggest, that your real estate agent advises). 

It is imperative is to do this before the home’s on the market, before a buyer is writing an offer.  This way, you can take your time, get multiple bids, and perhaps do the work in a less costly fashion than if you’re in escrow and under pressure with some contractual restrictions and you have the advantage of presenting less risk to an interested buyer since the home’s condition is no longer a mystery.  Often, if you inspect and pick key repairs and do them prior to marketing the home, you will be able to sell As Is once you do try to sell the property.

So to summarize the “business” angle, it’s important to learn the true condition of the home via professional inspections, possibly select key areas to address prior to selling the property and then making the inspections and repairs known to potential buyers upfront.

What about the “emotional” side of the equation?

This is just as important, because buyers have to like your property if they want to live in it (not true with investment buyers, of course – in that case the numbers just have to make sense).  It’s almost like dating: there has to be a spark of attraction to get the buyer to commit.   Creating that spark is what staging is all about.  We want to make your townhome, condo or house appeal to the broadest range of potential buyers possible.  It is time to make your home about them, about your audience, rather than about you.

Staging is the topic of a boatload of books and I won’t pretend to do it justice in this one small post, but I will touch on it because staging is key to your maximizing your home’s market value.  I do not mean storing your furniture and renting new (however if your property is vacant, it may be a good idea to bring some furniture in).  I’m talking about “lipstick and rouge”, not reconstructive surgery.

The best return on your dollar for pre-sale preparation, after inspections, are cosmetic rather than structural changes. It’s nearly impossible to say what one item would “return” by itself, but as a package, you may see a 3 to 1 return on investment for minor changes.  Depending on your real estate, these could include:

• freshening up the front landscaping, including putting color near the front door (annuals, possibly in pots)
• cleaning the home, inside and out, including fixtures, windows, etc.
• removing odors (pets, cooking, insense, smoking)
• fresh paint, inside and out (as needed – often is needed!)
• new floor coverings (usually needed)
• declutter your home, including the inside of closets, cabinets, storage areas (consider renting a storage pod if needed)
• depersonalize (remove your unique “stamp” on the home so that buyers can envision themselves moving in)

I have gone through a two day staging course and do help my clients with all of the above, but can also recommend people who are professional stagers who will not only advise, but also assist, you in organizing all of the above.

What about big ticket items, like remodeling the kitchen? Usually those won’t pay you back the full cost of the improvement, but “touching up” the kitchen will.  For instance, let’s say you have a 30 or 40 year old kitchen.  Should you tear it out and remodel it to sell? No, but you’d probably get your money back by updating it a little so that it feels new: put in new appliances, a new countertop, and paint the cabinets (example only! this is not advice for homes I haven’t seen!)

It is very important to make your home attractive in the front so that buyers want to come into the home, and it’s just as key to make the inside feel spacious and clean.  If a home is structurally solid but filthy, most buyers will be very concerned about what they cannot see and any offers you get will be lower than the property’s potential.

In summary, to get top dollar when you sell your home and to increase the odds that you can sell it As Is, you need to do a fair amount of work upfront, before a buyer ever crosses the threshold or a for sale sign graces your front yard.  Get the home inspected professionally, take care of some key issues and then prepare your home aesthetically so that buyers want to come in, linger, and eventually write a great offer on your property.

How much should all of this cost? Typically, preparing a home to sell for its maximum worth on the market will cost about 1-2% of the home’s value (rule of thumb), including inspections, repairs, and staging.  For cash-strapped sellers, some of these can be billed to escrow but there will be a price for it. Inspections are usually billed at two rates: upfront payments will provide a substantial discount.  There are real estate affiliates which install carpet or other floorcoverings and will bill to escrow, or at a minimum wait 60 days to be paid, but as with the inspectors, these vendors will usually charge less if you can pay them upfront.

As mentioned above, it’s hard to say what any one component done by itself will net you in terms of return.  If you improve the interior of the home but don’t make the front yard attractive and welcoming, you may not get the traffic to bring you the desired return.  Or if you make cosmetic changes but don’t do inspections, the buyers will have concerns that your 40 year old house is full of issues with the electrical, plumming, or roof. So it’s not possible to say, “if I spend $1000 on carpeting I’ll get $3000 back in the sales price” because that’s looking at each element individually – it has to be a package deal to work.  It’s important to address both sides of the equation as to how buyers will feel about financial risk and attractiveness.  If done correctly, the right pre-sale work can bring you two to three or more times back the cost in a boosted sales price plus fewer renegotiations once you are in contract. With my clients, I will not ask them to have work done unless they’ll get back more than they put into it.  In one case in Santa Clara, I had the sellers spend $7000 in pre-sale inspections and work, and our return on investment was about $21,000 more in sales price (this was on a $500,000 home, so the “investment” was almost 1.5% and the return was about a 4% higher sales price). So they were very happy!

For more information on this topic, please see my book, “Get The Best Deal When Selling Your Home In Silicon Valley“, which is available at many local libraries, bookstores, on Amazon or from me should you interview me to possibly represent you in the sale of your home (my book is my gift to potential clients).

About the author of this post: I am Mary Pope-Handy, a Silicon Valley Realtor (second generation), working full time and successfully selling Santa Clara County real estate since 1993. Specializing in west valley homes (Almaden Valley, Cambrian Park, Los Gatos, Monte Sereno, Saratoga, Campbell and nearby), but work all of the southern San Francisco Bay Area.  I have an extensive educational background & experience  and am the holder of numerous realty awards and designations.  Additionally, I’m a featured speaker at real estate events and am well known in the realty community.  To learn more, please see my profile online.

To learn more about selling your home for top dollar, please continue reading more about what it takes on my popehandy.com website “Sale Success” article.

Planning and Budgeting to Sell Your Silicon Valley Home

Preparing your San Jose area home to sell should be done enough in advance of when you want to have your home go on the market that any unplanned repairs can be completed first (without a lot of time pressures) so that you net the most money possible from the sale. It’s hard to know how much time to allow for the unknown, but my suggestion is to provide yourself a month or two, if possible. Three is even better.  If you want to sell this upcoming spring, it’s smart to get started on your plan now.

In Santa Clara County, we have very mild winters and it’s not usually difficult to get most repairs done even in winter (unless they are “outside” repairs and we’re in the middle of a rare El Nino year).  If you start now, you should have no trouble finding inspectors (presale inspections are more than just a good idea!)  and contractors. If you wait ’til February, you may not be on the schedule of your own choosing.

So where to start? What to budget?

In my experience, most Silicon Valley homes that have been lived in for many years often have 1 – 2 % of the value of the home needed in repairs and staging prior to going on the market. The longer you’ve been in the home without doing periodic inspections for termites and other pests, on the roof or structure of the home, the more likely that number will creep upwards. If your home is young and you’ve been there a short while, chances are good that this doesn’t apply to you.

In 2006 I sold a home in the Cambrian Park  area of San Jose in which the sellers had not lived there even a decade and their expenses reached 3%. The reason? A large chunk of that is because it appears that in the past, contractors put good material down over wood members infected with dry rot (a floor in one room and a roof). That’s expensive! This was extreme. 

In most cases,  if you have a home worth appx. $1 million (to use round numbers), plan on spending $10,000 to $20,000 on repairs, improvements, and “lipstick and rouge” to make your home show well. Been there a lot longer, and the home is much older? Plan on more.

Where does the money go?

Often the biggest or most expensive repairs are going to pest and termite work (drywood termites, subterranean termites, dry rot, fungus, etc.).  If you have drywood termites in more than 1 place, you’ll probably end up needing to tent (fumigate) the house – though you may be able to wait on that until the very end of the escrow or sale.

Bathrooms with dry rot can get expensive in a hurry. Especially if you have tile, or if the damage is extensive. Many years ago I sold a home in Sunnyvale in which the one bathroom originally had only a tub. The grown kids decided to do mom a favor and plumb in a shower themselves while she was away on vacation. Little did they know that there was a leak inside. When mom was ready to sell, we discovered the problem and the damage was incredible – it went from the shower to the outside stucco wall. That house had no termites, but about 2% of the value of the home at that time in water damage and dry rot to the bathroom. (It was so bad that the termite company asked me to please go look at it with my own eyes – I did – it was incredible.)

Other big ticket items can include electrical (which buyers feel strongly about), roofs and foundations.

Back in the “hot sellers market” years of the early 2000s, many many people bought their homes “AS IS” in Los Gatos, Saratoga, Almaden Valley, Cupertino, and all over San Jose and Silicon Valley. Many of those sellers and buyers never did the fixes that should have happened back when they bought. Consequently, a lot of homes now being prepared for the market have badly deferred maintenance and expensive repairs required by the current real estate sales climate.

In other words, you may not have been able to make the seller fix it 5 years ago, but now the buyer will expect you to fix it (and in most cases can insist).  What was not done then will likely have to be done now.

What about staging?

The first, and most important, part of staging is decluttering. (This is the hardest part, too.)  You probably want to do at least the de-cluttering before having your pre-sale inspections so that the various inspectors can see what needs to be seen. Most of us live with too much stuff in our homes. Selling is a great reason to thin out your unneeded possessions and give some to charity, throw others out, or possibly have a garage sale.

If there are things you won’t need for the next 6 months but want to keep, think storage. My favorite resource for this is Door-to-Door. They bring a pod to your driveway, you load it, and they bring it back to you either after you move (if it’s a local move) or when a regular moving truck comes to move you a long distance.

It is helpful to work with a real estate practitioner who’s skilled in staging to help decide what should go and what should stay. If you can choose your Realtor early in the process, which I do suggest, then enlist him or her to assist you with this decision making process.

Next is the fine-tuning, rearranging, or replacing of things which will net you more than they cost. The biggest ticket items, where you get the most bang for your buck, tend to be in floorcovering and wall covering (carpet and paint, or removal of carpet and exposing the hardwood if there is any, removing of old wallpaper, etc.). Also high on the good-return list is spruced up landscaping in the front yard. You need to get them in the door before they can buy the house, so make it appealing enough that they want to see more!

Each home is different and so is each need and budget. A good, seasoned agent can help you to spend as little as possible while reaping the most benefit as a seller. If you start early, you can get the process going when there’s less competition and less stress.

Selling your Silicon Valley home in the first half of 2008? Call me now, in December, and we can take care of a few things like ordering pre-sale inspections during the ‘slow time’ for the inspectors. (The inspections can all happen on the same morning or afternoon in most cases, so it doesn’t really take much of your time.) Hopefully they won’t find anything and you will have peace of mind. But if they do, you can address it early on and be ready to hit the market the day after the SuperBowl (often a good time) or whenever you want.

Wishing you a very happy holiday season!

Mary

(in addition to having other designations, I am also an Accredited Staging Professional)

cell 408 204-7673

Do you want or need to sell your Silicon Valley home this year? If so, you ought to take the staging of your home very seriously. Often homeowners hire a Realtor (or other real estate licensee), ask for their advice on preparing the house and yard for sale, and then proceed to disregard all or most of the guidance given.

Why do would sellers hire an agent and then not take the professional advice offered? Especially in THIS market? The result is frustrating for both the homeowner (who will not realize the best possible price) and for the agent (who cannot control the condition, but who is hampered in selling the home because of it).

To be candid, the odds are that you will not be able to sell your home in San Jose, Los Gatos, or Saratoga this year. Countywide, most homes are NOT selling. Actually, let’s look at the numbers for just a moment – you will see that it’s fairly sobering.

In the Cambrian Park area of San Jose (zip codes 95124, 95118 and a little of 95008), there are 241 single family homes and condos or townhomes for sale (the “active listings”). In that same district, just 109 are pending sales. This refects about a 45% chance of selling.

In Almaden Valley, an upscale collection of neighborhoods comprising the 95120 zip code area of San Jose, it’s much worse. There are 121 houses and townhouses or condominiums for sale, and a mere 34 which are under contract to sell. The odds here are 28% that you’ll sell.

For Los Gatos (95032 and 95030), it’s 203 available vs 50 pending. Down to 24% opportunity to sell.

Saratoga (95070) has 152 active listings and just 33 pendings, or a 21.7% sales success.

So selling is an uphill battle for most of the west valley communities of Silicon Valley. What can you do, in terms of staging and preparing your home, to improve your odds of selling? First of all, I would suggest hiring an agent who will give you staging guidance, and secondly, I advise that you take it to heart and implement as much as possible.

Personalized suggestions aside, below please find a few guidelines for you in prepping your Silicon Valley real estate for sale. The main ideas here are CLEAN, DECLUTTER, REPAIR, and if necessary, REPLACE.

Outside Staging Tips:

• Clean everything ’til it gleams! The exterior of the home and yard create your “curb appeal”. If you don’t have a power washer to tidy up your house’s exterior, borrow, rent or buy one. Nasty cobwebs on the front of your home are only good for a Halloween decoration. Get rid of ‘em! Clean windows and window tracks (which may not have been cleaned in years).
• Trim everything ’til you feel like a gardener at a theme park. Scruffy shrubs, weedy lawns and dead plants will not convince buyers or their agents that you have well maintained your home.
• Add color near the front walkway and door. Annuals are good, whether in-ground or in pots. Color is the cheapest “bang for your buck” outside.
• Do you have peeling paint? Touch it up or repaint entirely, if needed. But do NOT leave peeling paint as the greeting your potential buyers get as they approach your home. You will create worry about all the things they cannot see if what they can see is in lousy shape.
• Polish the doorknobs and hardware. Get a new doormat if needed. Does the mailbox look tired? Paint or replace it if cleaning isn’t good enough.

Inside Staging Tips:

• Decluttering is usually more of an inside issue than an outside issue, but once you’ve tackled the yard to your satisfaction and your agent’s, it’s time to whip the inside of your abode into show-worthy shape. That begins with decluttering. Time to sort your stuff for giving away, selling, throwing out, or storing for later. Most homes need about 1/3 to 1/2 of their “stuff” gone for selling the home.
• Depersonalize. Selling your home means you need to make your property be something that the buyers can mentally see themselves in. The more of your highly personal stuff they see, the harder it is for them to see themselves in your place. It’s best to remove all personal items (or leave only a very few). (I once saw a home decorated with whips and chains. It made for an interesting open house, but the property had trouble selling.)
• Floors and walls are hugely important. Paint and carpet are often needed. Yes, it’s a pain to recarpet and repaint, but it’s another big “bang for your buck” area. Got wallpaper? It may need to go. Ask your agent for a candid answer on that.
• If it’s broken, fix it – whether it’s a heating element on your stove, a window that won’t open, cracked glass on the shower enclosure, a noisy fan in the bathroom, you name it.

Once you think your home is in “good shape”, have the pre-sale inspections done. Each situation will be a little different, so hire an agent before hiring your inspectors so that you get good inspectors and neither pay for too many inspections or get too few of them. The pre-sale inspections will give you areas to fix before a buyer ever sees the home. This will provide the peace of mind that buyers need to write a good offer for your property.

Overall, these are not big things to do. What’s the cost? It is not unusual to spend 1-2% of the value of the home in getting ready to sell it for top dollar. Getting ready includes staging but goes beyond it, also encompassing pre-sale inspections and repairs that come up in the course of those inspections (termite work, for instance, or dry rot in the bathroom).

Just this morning I saw a home in Los Gatos that is listed at well over a million dollars and it had peeling paint on the front of the house. It’s being professionally represented by an agent who knows that the home needed a coat of paint, but who could not get the seller to agree to this much-needed improvement.

So why do homeowners so often hear professional advice on staging but not act on it? It happens so often that I think it’s worth discussing.

Sometimes, there’s no money for the repairs and improvements.

Most of the time, though, it does not seem to be about money so much as buy-in. Often homeowners don’t quite believe that the agent is right about staging advice. As homeowners, we tend to tolerate things because they aren’t worth spending time and money on for ourselves. It may be an issue of ugly wallpaper or outdated colors. It varies from house to house. You know you “should” do it, but “is it really THAT bad??”

Other times, the home owner may not realize that what is functional is not ideal for selling. I have seen homes with shag carpeting from the 1970s, in perfect condition, just the way George Day had it installed in the living room along with the textured wallpaper. It’s been perfectly maintained and is functional, but it’s not going to help sell your million dollar Saratoga home for top dollar!

If you interview several agents when listing your home, ask for honest feedback on the property’s condition and appearance. You should get some tips and consensus on general things that need to change. Many Realtors will do a major effort with you on staging once you hire them, and the staging is part of the service they offer so they are not going to devote a lot of time to this when you may still hire someone else. But ask a few questions and be prepared to hear that you need to do some work and spend some money. If you can hire someone with staging expertise, so much the better.

Taking this discussion back to the very beginning, one of your first steps in getting your San Jose area home ready to sell is to hire a great Realtor to assist you. Your Realtor will help you get your home in sellable condition by assisting you in navigating inspections, staging, and and showing issues. You can find more tips on staging at www.StagedHomes.com, and also a list of Accredited Staging Professionals such as myself there too.

In this challenging market, most homes are not selling. But a percentage of them are successfully managing to sell and close despite the odds. Hiring a good agent and getting your home in great shape are key to being in the minority of homes that do sell in today’s market.

Call me if you’d like a personalized, no cost and no obligation consultation on your selling and buying needs. I will share with you a copy of my book at our meeting, “Get The Best Deal When Selling Your Home in Silicon Valley” too. It is full of helpful information and is yours to keep just for meeting with me.